Will You Love Me Tomorrow?
by WinterWhirls
Summary: Memories define us. So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love - all gone overnight. And the one person you trust may be telling you only half the story. E/O
1. Chapter 1

She opens her eyes. Instantly she is met with a brilliant glow streaming through the window. The sunlight glides across the hardwood floor and up over the mattress in elongated ribbons of radiance.

The bed is big, the comforter an oppressive weight against her chest. She thinks she must have fallen asleep in her mother's bed last night. She blinks, and with a cursory glance at the crème walls realizes that she isn't in Serena's bedroom. Confused and groggy, she makes to turn toward her mother, stopping short when she is met with the unfamiliar face of a man, well built and sleeping soundly, lying in bed next to her.

Her first thought is that she's fucked a stranger. That wouldn't be anything particularly remarkable, but as a disgruntled sigh passes through her lips, her eyes are drawn to the fingers of his left hand, where the glint from his wedding ring catches the bright sunlight. She flops back down onto the mattress with a soft groan and throws an arm over her forehead, covering her eyes, angry with herself. She's fucked a married man.

After a moment of bathing in the sunlight and her disappointment, she folds the comforter back carefully, not wanting to wake him, and slips out of the bed. Her clothes aren't in the bedroom, and although she's always been comfortable with her nakedness, a flush tinges her cheeks as her imagination conjures up images of frantic up-against-the-wall desperation. In the kitchen, she fills up a glass of water and takes it with her to the bathroom, sipping at it absently. She sets the glass down on the edge of the sink. She uses the toilet and cleans up a little, picks up her glass, before turning to look in the mirror.

The stranger reflected in the glass stares back at her in shock. Time stops. Her heartbeat is a pounding tidal wave in her ears, and her throat shuts tight, preventing her from drawing breath.

The goblet slips from her stunned fingers with a whoosh, hitting the floor and shattering into thousands of crystallized shards with an enormous ringing noise that echoes far longer that the initial clatter.

She barely notices it, her eyes fixed on her image in the mirror. The stranger, she realizes, is an altered version of her younger self. But what has happened to her? There are tiny crinkles beside her eyes where yesterday lay unblemished skin. Small pockets under her eyelids. Day old concealer is applied, but she's never before had a reason to use it, never had anything to hide. Her hair is shorter; a lighter brown intermixed with shades of caramel around her shoulders. Looking down she sees that her body is older, too, her stomach no longer the perfectly tight smoothness it was only hours ago, her breasts heavier.

With a choked gasp her hands fly to her face, pushing and prodding at the looser skin she finds there. Her breathing is heavy, her heart pounds in her throat, and in her mind exists an orchestra of sounds so loud that she can barely think. Her thoughts are screaming at her and yet she cannot make sense of any of them. Yesterday she was only twenty-three years old!

Footsteps behind her, and then "Olivia? Are you alright?"

Stunned into silence, she can only turn around to face this stranger, and let her fear speak for itself. Her hands remain presses tightly over her mouth. The man in front of her is naked too, and he walks toward her tentatively, his hands held up in front of him. "It's okay. You're alright," he says, understanding and recognition filling his eyes. He walks toward her and wraps his arms around her warmly, pulling her to him.

"W-what's happening to me?" she whispers, her back quivering with her ragged breathing. "Who are you?"

"It's me," he says. "Elliot." he speaks soothingly, his tone comforting, his hand travelling the contours of her back. "We've been married a long time."

She lets out a sob, pushing back. "No! No, I don't know you. I don't know you!" Her eyes well with tears and the wetness spills over, her confusion and fear too much for her to handle.

"Shhhh, darling, it's alright. Let me explain." He moves toward her again, but she shies away from his unfamiliar touch, backing into the sink and tipping over the cup holding the toothbrushes and toothpaste. She is not who she was when she went to bed last night. She can't remember even _going_ to bed last night. She is trapped in this body, this older body that isn't hers, trapped in a world she doesn't recognize. Stuck in a place that is paralysing unfamiliar. Elliot holds out his hand to her, coaxing her from her cowering position. "Come. Let's go in the living room. I promise you you're safe, Liv."

Reluctantly she takes it, because she isn't sure of anything and she is terrified of being by herself. He seems to know what is happening to her, and he seems controlled. She realizes that part of her automatically trusts him. Some subconscious part of her mind already trusts this stranger man she woke up with this morning. She tiptoes over the glass, wincing, and he takes her hand in his. His hand is big, warm, and calloused. His arms are sparsely covered in dark hair, and she can see the bulge of muscle beneath them. She is too confused to care that she is staring.

Elliot steps quickly back into the bedroom, grabbing a silk robe from a chair in the corner. "Here," he says, handing it to her. As she slips into it he pulls on a pair of loose sweats.

In the living room, he sits her down on the couch, and sits down beside her.

"I…I don't know what happened – I – who..." She begins, too many questions floating around in her head for her to make sense of them.

"Hey," he whispers, putting a hand on her knee. "Calm down." He shifts closer, talking directly to her. "I'm going to tell you what's going on, but I need you to be calm first." He rubs his hand over her thigh in a soothing circular motion. Somehow already attunted to his touch, she can feel her heartbeat slowing the slightest bit in her chest.

"Okay," she breathes, closing her eyes.

He watches her, makes sure that she's stable, before starting.

"Olivia, you have problems with your memory. Trouble remembering things." He clears his throat. "Some days, you wake up and you have no memory at all, thinking you are a teenager, or a child, even." His voice becomes thick, and he breathes in and out a few times, before continuing, his voice rougher. "I know you don't remember me. I know that I'm a stranger to you," he says, quietly, sadly. "But it's okay. I understand," he assures her, albeit unconvincingly due to the pain audible in his voice. "I'm your husband. We've been married eleven years."

The overload of information clenches her heart.

"I don't -," she begins, panicking.

He slides his hand soothingly up her back. "It's okay. I know. I know."

"How did I get to be like this?" She whispers, her breathing accelerating and the wetness accumulating in the corners of her eyes. She tries, tries as hard as she can, to push past the blankness in her mind.

He moves even closer, pulling her gently about the shoulders so that she leans into his side, her head bumping his shoulder.

"Olivia…" he whispers.

"Tell me!" she insists, searching desperately for answers, the fear bubbling up her throat again. "Tell me. Please."

He presses his lips to her forehead, trying to relax her.

"Five years ago...you had an accident," he states, his voice tight with pain. "A horrible, horrible accident."


	2. Chapter 2

Elliot sighs quietly when the phone goes unanswered the first time he calls. He places the receiver back on its cradle and waits a moment before picking it up again. He presses down the redial key with trepidation and hold the phone to his ear, simultaneously drumming his fingers on the surface of his desk. This time, the phone rings all the way to the voice mail, and continues halfway through his monotonous answering-machine message before he hears the soft click indicating that she's picked up.

"Hello?" She answers, her voice unsure.

"Hi, Olivia."

On the other end of the line, there is silence. He can hear the crackle and pop of the connection, and the soft, almost imperceptible inhale and exhale as she breathes. She doesn't speak, only listens. She does so often, thinking about the situation in her own mind and spinning it around until she thinks she's got enough control over it to be comfortable. He knows she's alert, waiting for him, primed for the words to come out of his mouth.

"It's Elliot," he states, hoping that she hasn't forgotten. Some days since the accident five years ago, although rare, are good. She can remember her life, and his name, and their relationship. Other days, the unfortunately frequent ones, she finds herself trapped into the hell of her empty memory.

On the other end of the connection, silence prevails a reaction to his words.

"Everything OK?" he tries again, because after five years of it, he knows how to get her to respond. He focuses on asking her questions about herself. Questions she can identify with, ones for which she can provide an answer.

"Elliot," she murmurs, and he can hear the recognition seeping into her voice. He knows she hasn't forgotten, because he's all too used to her voice when she's panicked and scared, and right now she's nowhere near the blatant hysteria that bleeds from her in the morning when she wakes up, when she forgets her entire life all over again.

He grins, and the relief floods through him as if his last exhalation was the barrage sliding open and allowing the emotion to wash across him. "How are you?"

"I'm fine."

An awkward silence passes. Their lives are filled with awkward silences. The void where her memory used to be is a gigantic hole and the silence blows in, taking up every corner of her mind.

"What've you been doing?" he prods, hoping to get a better feel for her state of mind.

"Nothing." She is silent for a moment. "I watched a bit of T.V." Her voice is calm and quiet and all the things he knows she's normally not. She's unhappy, and he can tell right away.

"I'm gonna head home now. I'll be there soon," he tells her, leaning forward in his chair and planting his elbows on his desk.

"Okay," she acknowledges.

"See you in a bit," Elliot stands. "I love you." He says it with conviction, and he's taken to saying it often, even if she won't remember it. He's just desperate for her to understand it, even for the shortest of moments. And although he would never blame her, he dreadfully wants her to reciprocate the words. He would die to hear them grace her lips. She never does though, and it's understandable. To her, he is a total stranger every morning.

He can't expect her to love a stranger.

"Bye," she says, and he hears the soft click of the telephone being replaced onto its cradle.

He walks to the door of the Captain's office, and knocks three times quickly with his knuckle before opening the door.

"Elliot," Cragen looks up from the pile of unordered papers scattered across his desk, and the stick of red liquorice that dangles from his fingertips. "What can I do for you?" His face has aged with the years, hardened with the cases, but he is ultimately still the same empathetic man Elliot first met.

"I just got off the phone with Olivia." He starts, and that alone is enough to get his captain's full attention. Apart from Olivia's neurologist, Cragen is the only one to whom Elliot has divulged all the details of her condition.

"Everything okay?" he asks, slightly weary.

"I'm actually going to head home, if that's okay…doesn't sound like she was doing all that great over the phone, so…" Elliot tucks his hands into his pockets and leans against the doorframe.

"Elliot…" Cragen sighs. He sets down the liquorice on the pad for his mouse, and drums his fingers anxiously on the mahogany of his desk, as if he dreads the words he's about to speak. "I understand your situation. And trust me, I want her to get better. I really, really do. No one deserves to be happier." He caps his pen and places it on the desk before folding his hands in front of himself, his thumbs twiddling, but his appearance otherwise calm. "However, it's been like this for a while now. You have a job. You have a duty here to fulfill. I can't keep letting you go home half-way through the work day every time it seems she's maybe not entirely happy -,"

"Not entirely happy?" Elliot cuts him off, his voice sceptical. "Not entirely _happy_? Do you have any idea what it's like for her? Can you even _imagine _what she goes through every day?"

"Elliot," Cragen chides. "I understand this. I do. But I'm your boss and it's my job to make sure you do yours. You're here getting paid as much as the other detectives who stay here and work cases all day and often all night. As a friend, I stand behind you. But as a commanding officer…something's got to change. You spend half your time investigating her accident -,"

"It wasn't an accident, Cap, someone attack-,"

"I know." Cragen sighs. "I know. But try to understand me here, Elliot."

"I love my job," Elliot says lowly, from under furrowed brows. "But I love her more. And she'll always be first. Always."

"Have you considered sending her to the Institution during the day?"

"She's not a fucking loony. She's perfectly capable. She just…she gets scared, that's all," Elliot defends. He's taken to being very quick about defending her, readily standing up fiercely to any criticisms or judgements toward her.

"Sending her there for the day doesn't mean there's anything necessarily wrong with her," Cragen reminds him. "It's just a safe place for her when you're at work."

Elliot scoffs. "Are you kidding me? She'd rip my balls off."

Cragen pulls a half-smile, just a small tug of his lips. After a heavy sigh, Cragen waves his hand in a gesture of dismissal. "Go, Elliot. Take care of her." He leans back in his chair, warning in his eyes. "But figure something out, okay? This can't continue forever."

Elliot nods, and pushes off the doorframe. He paces back to his desk and presses the power button on his computer, not bothering to shut it down properly. He slings his jacket over his arm and grabs a stack of unfinished paperwork before quickly exiting the squad room before anyone can change their minds and make him stay.

Often, he thinks quitting would be so much easier. But they live off his salary, and Olivia could never hold a steady job.

Olivia stands in the bedroom, the closet door opened wide to reveal the body length mirror hung on the back. She stands on the carpet before it, staring at her own reflection.

This is me, she thinks; as she watches the stranger in the mirror tentatively prod her cheek. This is me. This is me.

If she looks hard, she can see bits and pieces of herself from when she was younger. She woke up this morning thinking she was twelve, living with Serena, and late for school. Instead she was greeted by the creases on her face, thinner hair, and breasts droopier than she'd wanted. The startled yelp of shock that had erupted from her frozen lips earlier today had roused the sleeping man beside her, the man claiming to be her husband.

I'm Elliot, he'd said. And he'd explained everything. An accident. Memory trouble. You're forty-six. It's okay; don't be scared, I'm here for you.

With a violent burst, she reaches out and yanks hard on the door handle, slamming the closet shut. The mirror on the back of the door vibrates with the force of the impact, but all she cares about is that the stranger is gone now. Gone. Just like decades of her life, and all the precious moments between.

The emotion raises up inside her, powerful, a churning ball of frustration and anger and sadness. She cannot control herself.

She picks up a small ornamental glass bird from the bookshelf behind her, and angrily hurls it at the floor. Instead of crashing satisfactorily into tiny crystallized shards with the shattering clash she had hoped for, it dings a mark on the floorboards and the tail of the bird breaks off. Instantly she feels guilty, and the unexpected flash of anger evaporates. It could be one of Elliot's prised possessions, maybe from his parents (if he has any) or an expensive gift from a friend.

She quickly gathers the two pieces in her hand and rushes to the kitchen, where she digs through the drawers until she finds the glue. She uncaps it and carefully sticks the tail back onto the body. Excess glue oozes from the sides when she pushes down, and she wipes the stickiness away with her fingers. Returning to the bedroom, she hides the bird behind a box on the dresser, not wanting Elliot to find it. She is terrified of upsetting him, of alienating the only person she knows.

"I broke the bird, Elliot, I'm sorry," she says quickly, when they are seated at the small dining table eating Italian takeout. She holds her breath. Her hands wriggle in her lap, her nails picking restlessly at her cuticles.

"What?" His face holds an expression of genuine confusion.

"The glass one in the bedroom," she explains nervously. "I broke it."

Elliot doesn't answer, just stares at her with piercing eyes, and chews slowly.

"You're mad," she states, nodding and looking down at her plate of food.

"No," he contradicts, clearing his throat. "I'm not mad. Where is it?"

"I'll get it," she says quickly, and jumps up from her seat. She shuffles quickly into the bedroom and reaches behind the box, closing her fingers gingerly around the delicate decoration. She relaxes in the private of the bedroom, the red tingle leaving her cheeks gradually, and her heartbeat slowing. Slowly, the embarrassment wears off. She walks back into the dining room, where he is leaning back in his chair waiting.

"It was an accident," she murmurs, and sets the bird down in the palm of his hand. He inspects her poor glue job, before placing the bird on the table.

"How did it happen?" He asks, and his gaze is imploring yet his voice remains casual.

"I don't…it happened all of a sudden," she explains, trying to tell him about the anger that had washed over her without sounding completely pathetic. "I got so mad…and it was _there_…"

He nods, understanding flashing through his features. "That's normal. Sometimes you get upset and you can't always control it. It's okay." He smiles at her, but it isn't genuine and she can tell he's holding things back from her. She wants to demand to know everything, but warns herself against angering him further.

"Was it a present?" She asks, testing the waters. She doesn't

"Yes." He nods and picks up his fork, pushing some food around on his plate. "Are you going to finish?" he gestures to her place, and the food still cooling in front of her. She sits down and imitates him, poking her fork into the vegetables.

"Who gave it to you?" She continues, not wanting the awkward silences that are far too common between them.

"Uh," he pauses, and sets down his fork again. "You did, actually. A long time ago." She watches quietly as a wave of sadness crosses his eyes.

She lies in the same bed where she woke up, on the same side, and under the same heavy comforter. It is late at night and she is tired, but she fights it. A melancholy surrounds her when she realizes that tomorrow when she wakes, she will have forgotten everything. She'll have to learn everything all over again. She wonders how tired Elliot must be of this pitiful routine.

In the bathroom, the sink turns off and the light extinguishes, and Elliot walks casually to the bed in a pair of black boxers. Her gaze travels the hard planes of his chest, the graceful bulge of his muscles.

Her eyes flutter closed when he plunks down on the mattress beside her, and pulls the comforter over himself. He shifts around until he is pressed against her side, her every curve heated as his body melds to hers. She is still, absorbing the new feeling of this man so close to her.

Her eyes snap open when his lips whisper against her neck, his breath washing out across the arch of her shoulder. His arm wraps tightly around his upper waist and his hand tickles along her ribcage, his searching fingers stopping right below the curve of her breast.

"Um…" she exhales, her voice unsure and shaky.

"Shhhh…" he whispers, his voice almost inaudible. He lifts himself up on his elbow and leans over her, his eyes searching her face, his gaze slipping over her. He shifts forward, and presses his lips to hers. They are warm and soft, and insistent when he doesn't receive a response from her. She lays there, docile like road kill, trying to convince herself to move her lips, her hands, to react to his offers. Her heart beats too loudly in her ears and her arms feel like lead.

Elliot's hand moves up the rest of the way and he slowly lays his palm flat over her breast. He exhales loudly against her mouth at the intimate contact.

"Elliot…" she tries, twisting her neck to the side slightly. It breaks the connection, but he only refastens his lips to her earlobe, suckling gently. His hand tenses and he gives her breast a gentle but firm squeeze, stroking his thumb across her nipple. She feels his erection against the side of her hip.

"Elliot…I'm tired. I just want to sleep now," she murmurs, the red once again tingeing her cheeks. Unconsciously, her hand comes up and pushes on his shoulder, placing distance between them. "I'm sorry. Not tonight."

He pauses above her, stilling and removing his hand from her body like she has burned him. He closes his eyes and sighs softy, though he tries to hide it from her, and them smiles at her lovingly.

"Okay." He rolls away from her and takes her hand, giving it a squeeze. "I'm sorry sweetheart." He lets her hand drop and turns away from her, onto his side. "Good night." She can tell, from the way he stays absolutely still, that he is upset.

She wonders how many times this happens. How many times he comes to her for sex and she turns him away.

"Goodnight," she murmurs back. She wants to feel something, anything, but her heart denies her. She is incapable of feeling because she has nothing to feel for. She is but an empty shell.

She lays flat on her back and closes her eyes, willing sleep to come.


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you so much to everyone who reviwed. It was wonderful to hear from you :)

* * *

><p>"Good morning, Mr. Stabler," the petite woman behind the desk nods politely in his direction as he approaches. Her hair is pulled back in a tight knot at the back of her head, and her black-rimmed glasses perch low on her nose. Her young face looks up from the computer screen while her fingers continue dancing furiously across the keyboard. She smiles in Olivia's direction, peering from above her glasses. "Ms. Benson."<p>

"Hey, Michelle," Elliot replies, reaching into his pocket for his wallet, and producing the small rectangular identification card stamped with Olivia's picture and name. He hands it across the desk to the secretary, who pauses briefly to memorize the name and number before her, before proceeding to type them into the computer, her fingers flying across the keys. "Ten-thirty with Dr. Valance?" Michelle confirms, barely waiting for Elliot's acquiescent nod before printing the receipt. "If you could sign here," she hums, slipping the paper from the printer onto the countertop.

Elliot touches Olivia's back lightly, gesturing with his hand to the waiting area, where several chairs line its perimeter, the centre table complete with magazines and Kleenex boxes. "You can go sit down if you want," he tells her, "Usually it's about a fifteen minute wait." He grabs the pen sitting on the counter next to him, and proceeds to fill out the receipt.

He watches out of the corner of his eye as Olivia wanders toward the waiting area, her hands in her coat pockets, her chin tucked down into the collar. She is like a little girl in cold weather, guarded, trying to hide, to shield herself from the coldness of the biting wind.

Half concentrating on the form before him, Elliot watches as she lingers at the threshold of the room, glancing wearily around and taking in the older man who sits in the chair across from her, his head in his hands. She glances at the woman who leans over the magazines, spreading them meticulously out on the tabletop, hitting the cover of each rhythmically with her index finger and mumbling under her breath. Olivia turns around and walks back to where he stands, and his heart warms at how close she is standing to him, her arm almost brushing his.

"Is it okay if I just wait here with you?" she murmurs, once more tucking her chin into the collar of her coat. She is nervous; he can tell immediately.

He nods casually, turning back the form and placing a hand on her bicep. "Are you worried?"

She shrugs, almost imperceptibly, and sighs. "No."

He smiles at her and squeezes her arm before releasing it and sliding the completed form back over to Michelle. "It's fine, Liv."

Michelle smiles, ignoring the exchange between them. "That'll be about a ten minute wait. Dr. Valance will be with you shortly."

"Thanks," he says, before turning towards Olivia. "Let's go sit. Come on." He unzips his jacket and slides out of it, looping it over the hook on the coat rack. "Gimme your coat," he offers, holding out his hand for her jacket. She removes the black garment, but instead of handing it to him like he expected, she shifts past him and hangs it up herself. He smiles, his heart clenching at the parts of her old self that sometimes shine through.

When she lost her memory, she became a whole different person, and it had shattered his heart irreparably. It had caused him to mourn a loss so horrid that it was as if the woman he loved had suddenly died. Sometimes, though, he is rewarded with moments where her old self shines through. Be it a flash of stubbornness, or a beat of independence, or even the rare occasion when she calls him El, he cherishes each one.

* * *

><p>"It looks scary, but it doesn't hurt at all," Dr. Valance says as she gestures to the enormous white machine with a dome shaped length and several electrical wires protruding from each end to plug into the sockets on the wall. Dr. Valance flips a switch on her desk and the machine jolts to life with a low whirring sound that gradually accelerates until it is a constant hum.<p>

Olivia feels her heartbeat pound in her ears, and her vision quakes slightly around the edges with each thump. Elliot had explained that she was in for some weekly tests, and that there was nothing to worry about. She wonders bitterly how she is supposed to stay relaxed with the thought of having to lie inside that machine in the forefront of her mind.

"She's old, so she's loud," Dr. Valance nods to the machine and then winks at her. "Don't worry, Olivia."

Olivia cannot decide if she likes this woman. As opposed as she is to judging by first impression, there is a part of her mind that automatically reads and categorizes them. _You used to be a cop_, she reminds herself. _Reading people was part of your job_. With her doctor, there was no immediate sense of familiarity, like there was with Elliot. Lauren Valance has proven to be nothing but kind in the few short minutes since she's known her, but there is a sincerity missing, and Olivia can't feel her. It frightens her. Olivia doesn't make to sit down, doesn't venture farther into the room, and makes no attempt to become familiar with her surroundings in the room. Instead, she lingers by the threshold, her back against the door.

"If I could just get you to put on this," Dr. Valance smiles again while handing Olivia a folded light green garment. Olivia steps forward and takes it, and as she pulls it toward her the neatly folded material unravels to reveal a plain hospital-like gown.

"Okay," she replies, and shifts awkwardly on her heels when the doctor does not appoint her a room where she can go and change. "Uh," she starts, a blush forming on her cheeks.

Elliot drops his gaze to the floor and clears his throat before stepping past her and slipping through the door, exiting the room and waiting out in the hall. Dr. Valance is already out of the room by the time Olivia turns back around to look at her, the second door on the other side of the room pulling quietly shut.

Alone and private, Olivia steps out of her clothing and slips into the cold gown. Goosebumps pucker the skin of her arms. She dumps her clothing onto a nearby chair and then steps toward the door, opening it a crack and sticking her head outside. Elliot leans against the opposite wall.

"You can come in," she says, and opens the door wider.

"Actually, the sessions are private," he tells her, stepping forward. "Usually I go in the waiting area or something during the appointment."

"What?" she blanches, "Why?" She doesn't want to be alone with the doctor. Elliot is the only person she trusts, and even then, it's thin. Transparent.

"It's procedure," he explains, his hands tucked into his pockets. "You'll be fine."

She narrows her eyes. "You don't know that it will," she snaps.

"And you don't know that it won't." He sighs, and then places a hand on her shoulder. "Olivia. You come here every week. It's _fine_."

Frustration bubbles up inside of her at his unwillingness to talk to her. She feels like a child. She feels like shaking him and demanding that he tell her absolutely everything.

How can he ask her to believe him on blind faith? It's her life, she realizes. She leads her life by being lead, like a sheep that cannot think for itself.

"Fine," she scowls, and slams the door.

* * *

><p>"Everything okay?" Dr. Valance asks as she strides back into the room.<p>

"Yes." Olivia is seated in the chair next to the one on which rests her folded clothing.

"Great. Let's get started, then." She walks over to the machine and lifts the lid, revealing a space large enough for a person to lie down in. "Go ahead and lie down," the doctor says, reaching for a thick folder on her desk.

Cautiously, Olivia lifts herself up into the machine and lies down in the claustrophobic enclosure. Her arms lay at her sides, and she stares at the ceiling.

"Okay. Make sure you hold onto this, and be very careful not to let go," says Dr. Valance, as she hands Olivia a round, bicycle-horn like gadget. If you squeeze it, it'll let me know that you want to tell me something. I can't hear you once I close the lid and start the tests, so it's important that you squeeze it of you want to tell me something, okay?"

Olivia swallows, and circles her hand around the small object. "Yeah."

Dr. Valance smiles and slowly pulls the lid of the machine down. Suddenly, all she can see is black, and the air around her feels thick and mouldy. The smell from the machinery accumulates in her throat and makes her desperate for the freeness of open air.

"Okay in there?" she hears the doctor ask.

No, she thinks. No, I want out! "I'm fine," she answers, unwilling to show this woman her weakness. Then she realizes that the doctor cannot hear her anyway, and anger simmers in her stomach at the thought of this woman mocking her position.

"Perfect!" Olivia hears some rustling in the room outside her small enclosure. "Olivia, I'm going to show you some photographs. If you remember anything, or if you have anything at all to say, please squeeze the horn."

Olivia closes her eyes tightly against the sudden onslaught of light that filters into the tiny space from a screen built into the lid of the machine, directly above her. When she opens her eyes, she is met with a photograph of a woman.

The woman is tall, her hair blond and her eyes green. She is seated, and on her lap is a small child with a dark complexion, and a pout gracing its tiny lips. The woman's arms hold the baby securely, but there is sorrow in her eyes. Olivia doesn't squeeze the horn.

The next picture is of a woman with red hair and a form fitting pencil skirt and matching jacket, outside on a busy street. She smiles at the camera, her green eyes sparking and her briefcase clutched in her hand. _Casey Novak_, the sticker on her briefcase reads. The name is as alien as the face, and Olivia wonders if this woman was part of her life, if she's family, a friend, a co-worker.

The screen flickers and another image appears. A house, two stories and built from tan brick, with white window shutters and a white front door. The grass on the front lawn is a yellowy-green, and looks like it needs to be mowed, but the house is otherwise well kept. A sedan is parked on the driveway, and a bicycle is lying on its side behind it, the pink streamers attached to the handlebars looking scraggly.

It is all frighteningly unfamiliar. Olivia is smart enough to realize that the doctor is showing her photographs of her life, pieces of her memory, clues, but she cannot remember anything. She pushes, sweeps the emptiness of her mind, searching for memories that connect to the images.

The next photo is of a teenage girl, brown haired and blue eyed, standing beside a Christmas tree. She wears baggy sweats and her hair is pulled back in a loose ponytail, remnants of yesterday's mascara lightly smudged beneath her eyes. She looks happy though, the way she smiles and gestures to the tree in a proud fashion. Her teeth are white, but Olivia's eye catches on the one blemish of this beautiful girl, her tooth on the utmost left corner of her smile is missing.

Dr. Valance trills something about just a few more images, but Olivia is only half listening. She is mesmerized by the photos in front of her. She doesn't want to miss out on a single one, doesn't want to lose any part of her life before herself, even if she'll only have this knowledge for today.

The screen flickers once more and a tall building with a revolving door is cast across the small screen. The windows are dark, stacked several stories on top of each other, and the brick of the building looks expertly designed and expensive, like that of a distinguished hotel.

Suddenly Olivia is suffocating; sweat misting on her temples as her eyes roll back into her skull, her mind assaulted by images. She cannot stop the headache that pounds in her temples as some sort a dam gives way and an enormous flood rushes through her mind.

_She is seated in a room she does not recognize. There is a large window on the far wall, the drapery that hangs from the detailed curtain hanger cascades to the carpeted floor. The comforter on the bed in the centre of the room matches the material covering the window, presenting a stylish, modern appearance. She turns around on her stool and she is facing a mirror, which sits upon a rosewood dresser. Various bottles of perfume and beauty products are scattered across its surface. Olivia looks at her reflection and a feeling of pride and contentment swirls in her stomach, for her carefully curled hair and flattering makeup make her look pleasingly attractive. Behind here, there are candles lit and roses scattered randomly across the bed and floor. She stands, smoothing her hands down the soft chiffon of her black dress, adjusting the straps to ensure the concealment of the black garment underneath. She turns to the side to view herself in profile, and with a smug smile she turns to walk toward the adjoining bathroom, throwing a quick glance at the clock. Her tall heels thump softly against the carpeting._

_She knows she still has time, so she ventures into the bathroom and turns the tap of the tub on, making sure to adjust the temperature to just a little hotter than usual. Tonight must be perfect. She wants it to be the best night of their relationship, one for apologies and forgiveness and making up._

_She lets the tub fill and then turns off the water, taking the towel off the rack and folding on the rim of the tub. _

_In the other room, a knock sounds at the door. Her pulse accelerates, anticipation bubbling in her stomach. Elliot. Elliot is here. She takes her time walking to the door, trying to calm herself. She has made too many mistakes with him recently, and she will not fuck this up. Tonight she will take his breath away._

_When she opens the door, however, it is fear that stops the air in her lungs. Her throat constricts and a cold adrenaline rush washes down to her toes. _

"_What are you doing here?" she hisses at the unexpected man in the doorway. He is not who she expected. This is not the right person. Her hands shake at the sight of his face, his eyes that are alight with anger. _

"_Let me in."_

"_No," she shakes her head. "Go away." _

_His face twists into a snarl, his brown eyes hard as flint. "Get in the fucking room, Olivia." _

_Stunned, she takes a step back and almost rolls her ankle as her weak knees give out and she teeters in her heels. _

_He pushes forward and wraps his hand tightly around her bicep, whitening the skin around his grip. He shuffles her farther into the room and shuts the door behind him, his eyes menacing. Her breathing accelerates until she is panting. _

"_Get off me," she whispers. "He's gonna be here, you need to go!" _

_He laughs harshly, and his voice bounces off the walls of the hotel room. "You're stupider than I thought, Liv." His teeth clench and his hand around her arm tightens. Olivia feels the dread mounting rapidly in her chest. The man's face is obscured, blurry, but his body language sparks anger like a thunderstorm. _

"_What?"_

"_He's not coming," The man growls through clenched teeth. "And you're not fucking leaving."_

_She glares at him, her heartbeat resounding in her ears as her vision shakes with betrayal. She jerks her body violently, trying to free her arm from his grasp. _

_His hand comes down suddenly and with force, striking her across the face. She is dazed, and the next moment she is being forced to the ground by his big hand on the back of her neck. _

"_You're nothing but a stupid little bitch, Olivia. Look at what you've done. Elliot hates you. He hates you so fucking much. And now," he breathes into her ear as he presses her face into the carpet, "You've made me hate you, too." _

_She groans from the sheer force she exerts into her muscles as she twists and thrashes, trying to turn onto her side to she can kick, bite, punch, anything to release the hold he has on her neck. The panic suffocates her nearly as much as his hand on her throat._

_He grabs her hair and uses it as a handle to smash her nose into the floor._

When Olivia opens her eyes, the images have disappeared and her hand is squeezing the horn as hard as she can. There is sweat on her face, running down her temples, and her vision swims as she is thrust back into the present, into the machine with the picture of the hotel with the revolving door still glaring at her from it's illuminated spot on the screen.

A sound rips from her throat, ugly and desperate, and suddenly she cannot get enough air into her lungs, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she fights for control of the muscles in her throat that tighten and tighten until she can literally feel the air she's inhaling scraping against the walls of her swollen throat.

Her foot jerks up and she kicks the top of the machine, desperate to escape from the enclosed space. She stills squeezes the horn in a death grip.

Immediately, the lid of the machine opens and a woman Olivia vaguely recognizes swims in her line of vision. The woman looks worried, her face frowned in concern. Olivia pushes her out of the way as she springs from the machine, stumbling to the far side of the room.

The woman's worry grows and she starts to walk towards her cowering position on the other wall. Olivia does not care. She needs out. She needs air. She needs to go far away where it is quiet, where she can be alone and safe and hidden.

"Olivia," she distantly hears the woman calling her name. "Olivia, it's Dr. Valance. Can you tell me what's wrong?" Suddenly there is a hand on her shoulder, and it frightens her greatly. Her body is tense, immensely so, and she springs away from the woman with the kind eyes that has backed her into the corner.

"Fuck off!" she yells, smacking her hands to her temples in a fruitless attempt to ease the headache.

The Dr. remains calm, but there is worry in her eyes. "Okay." She lifts her arms by her head. "Okay. Easy." She slowly backs over to her desk and presses the intercom.

"Michelle," she says, slowly and evenly. "Please tell Mr. Stabler to come to my office immediately."

The doctor watches her with intent eyes. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Olivia's breathing is still too quick and she doesn't want to risk loosing out on any oxygen by speaking. She is trembling, the memory too fresh in her mind. Earlier, she had wanted nothing more than to remember. Now, she yearns to forget. It is too much, too quickly.

She jumps again when there is a loud knock on the door.

"Come in," the doctor calls, still standing at a distance from Olivia.

The door swings open and Elliot comes in, shutting it behind himself. "What happened," he demands, his expression filled with concern. He turns to her, takes in her position in the corner.

Embarrassment washes through her at the thought that she must look weak, ridiculous, in front of the man with whom she lives.

"I think one of the pictures triggered something," Dr. Valance says, never taking her eyes off Olivia. The doctor makes her feel like a lab animal, an experiment. She focuses on Elliot, who slowly walks toward her.

"Liv," he whispers. "C'mon. C'mere."

"I don't want to talk about it," she stutters, her arms still clutching herself.

"That's fine, we won't," he tells her reassuringly. "Let's get changed, huh?"

Olivia nods, her racing heart slowing gradually as that strange sense of familiarity and comfort that follows Elliot like a second skin begins to ebb at her dizzy mind.

He holds out her clothes and outstretches his arm, waiting for her to come to him. Reluctant to move from her spot in the corner, her mind too shaky to tell her legs how to even walk, she eventually pushes off the wall and steps into his embrace.

His arm curls around her and she drops her forehead to his shoulder, but the rest of her body remains stiff in his arms. There is a battle within her – the instinct of trusting him and loving him, and the instinct that he is a stranger and unpredictable. His thumb rubs small circles into her lower back.

"Okay?" he whispers, after a moment, pulling back.

She sighs, letting the air out of her lungs in a long, shaky exhale. "Yeah."

"Good. Put these on and we'll go home." He presses her jeans and sweater into her arms.

Dr. Valance watches, and then follows Elliot out the door when he leaves. Olivia is once more alone in the room, and she slowly unties the gown and begins to dress.

* * *

><p>Elliot has been watching her closely all evening. Every sigh, every time she shifted, his eyes had flickered to her momentarily.<p>

Although she is terribly frightened of it, she doesn't want to forget this memory. She can feel it in her gut that it is a very important piece of information. She also knows that when she wakes tomorrow, she'll have no idea that the whole ordeal even happened.

Elliot is in the bathroom showering before he goes to bed, and so she creeps into the study that is just down the hall from the bedroom.

It isn't hard to find a pen and paper, and she sits down in his leather chair and begins to write down everything she can remember about the memory. It makes her bones cold and the back of her neck tingle, but she wills herself to continue writing.

When she has filled the page with her sloppy handwriting, she folds it carefully and slips it on top of the tall shelf next to her. Elliot won't be able to see it there. This is something she wants to keep private. She isn't ready for him to bombard her with questions about her writing it down just yet. She doesn't know if he will like it or not. She doesn't want to test him.

With the pen, she scribbles on the palm of her hand, '_Top of bookshelf in study_.' She hopes that tomorrow she will see the inscription on her palm and be able to re-read the memory, to find out more about it.

* * *

><p>Later, she finds that she cannot sleep. She is too frightened, too confused. Elliot is not asleep either, because the motion of his back pressing into her side isn't rhythmic and deep like she knows it should be.<p>

"Elliot?" she whispers into the darkness of the bedroom.

He turns over and looks at her.

"How did this happen?"

"What do you mean?" he asks, his voice throaty.

"This. My memory. How did it happen?"

He sighs heavily and rolls over completely to face her. He supports himself on his elbow. "Are you sure you want to know?" he mumbles, his gaze drifting over her. His eyes are anxious.

Does she? Will it even make a difference? She'll have forgotten by tomorrow anyway. "Yeah."

He touches her shoulder lightly, and gives her a small smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "Okay. Tell me if you feel upset." She nods. "You were walking home from the liquor store that's a few blocks down. I'd taken the sedan so you had to walk." He swallows harshly. "Uh, they aren't quite sure…" he mumbles, averting his gaze. "They think you went to cross the street. You didn't see the car coming."

Olivia tries to remember something about a car, an accident, but her mind comes up blank. "Go on," she whispers, staring at him with slightly parted lips.

"Fucking bastard wasn't watchin' where he was going," Elliot grumbles, swiping a hand across his face and then settling it on her stomach. "You were hit."

She inhales sharply as she visualizes it, and although it sounds real, and the emotion in his voice is unmistakably sadness, something doesn't feel right.

"Your head hit the windshield and then the pavement, consecutively. They aren't sure which blow caused the, uh, memory problems." He watches her intently.

She searches his face and sees nothing but honest hurt in his eyes, but the feeling in her stomach is still one of disbelief. "Are you sure?" she asks, curling toward him so he can't see her face.

"What do you mean?" He asks, his hand settling on the back of her head.

"Never mind. Thank you," she murmurs, faking a yawn.

He doesn't answer, instead lies back down on his back, closing his eyes. "Night, Liv."

"Night," she whispers as she shifts next to him.

She knows. She knows her accident has nothing to do with a liquor store. It has nothing to do with crossing the street. It has nothing to do with being hit by a car, but everything to do with a hotel room and roses and candles, and a violent stranger.

The confusion coats her like a thick blanket, as she lies awake, wondering why on earth Elliot would lie to her.

Wondering what else he is keeping from her.

* * *

><p>Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you thought :)<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Thank you so much for all your kind feedback. I appreciate it so much!**

* * *

><p>Elliot dumps the rest of his coffee into the sink, and fills the empty mug with water before placing it in the sink to avoid a stain in the white ceramic. He rushes to the lockbox, and fastens his gun to this belt and shoves the badge into his coat pocket.<p>

"I don't know when I'll be home," he tells Olivia, who sits at the table, watching him. She has just woken up and her expression still holds that confusion and sadness that washed over her in waves when he explained things to her earlier that morning.

She is silent, just observing his motions as he slips his feet into his shoes and laces them up. He hates to leave her like this, and he knows that he's going to be distracted all day, thinking about her mental state.

"I can usually avoid being called at night, but sometimes they need me there," he explains. "I'll probably be out on the street today," he tells her, as he closes his bag and grabs it, "So call me on my cell phone if you need to. The number is there on the counter, okay?"

Her gaze travels to the countertop, where a sheet of paper with his tiny writing on it is resting. "Okay," she says quietly.

"I'm gonna call you at lunch." He walks over to her. "I know it's new. I know you're probably really worried right now," he says, "But it's all going to be okay. You can call me," he promises, and gives her a squeeze. She doesn't reciprocate, doesn't even move to accommodate him.

With a tight smile he disappears out the door.

* * *

><p><em>Top of bookshelf in study<em>

It's written in black ink on her hand.

She finds the paper in the third room down the hall, and when she reads it, her mind reels. She isn't sure what the memory means, apart from the fact that it has something to do with her memory loss. And it's also written, in a different colour, about an hour after the last part, that she slipped out of bed to write that Elliot was lying to her about it.

She is confused beyone belief, and goes to lie down in bed because she cannot stand the way her mind swims in cirlces anymore.

* * *

><p>The phone rings, and when she picks up, it is someone called Dr. Valance on the other end of the line.<p>

"How are you, Olivia?"

"Um, fine." She replies, wondering what this woman is calling her for.

"I just wanted to go for a drive," says the doctor. "Visit somewhere that I think will help you with your memory. Can I pick you up?"

"I don't think -,"

"It's okay. Elliot won't mind. Are you ready?"

She looks down at her pyjama clad body and tells the doctor no.

"Well, how about I pick you up in an hour?" Dr. Valance asks. "Is that enough time?"

"Where are we going?" Olivia asks, desperate to know at least one thing for certain.

"Oh, just an old hospital you were in. It'll be fine."

"Um…"

"Olivia. You can trust me. It's okay."

* * *

><p>;"Are the patients locked in?" Olivia asks, gesturing to the thick doors along the hallway where she and Dr. Valance are walking. The car ride had been just under forty-five minutes long, and Dr. Valance had filled her in on more details of her lost life. She is anxious, her heart feeling slightly tight, and in her gut she knows she wants to be at home. Some part of her automatically repels this place.<p>

"The patients here have been committed," explains Dr. Valance as they begin walking down the hallway. "They're here for their own good, but against their wishes."

"Their own good?" Olivia repeats, eyeing the windows along the hallway, through which she can plainly see rooms of exactly the same shape, size, and colour.

"Yes. They're a danger to either themselves or others. They need to be kept secure."

They carry on walking, and although Olivia tries not to peer into the identical rooms as they pass by, her curiosity wins over the feeling that she is being extremely intrusive to the patients' lives. A woman looks up as Olivia passes her room, and through the glass, their eyes make contact. Although their faces meet, the woman's betrays no expression. Instead, she slaps herself, still watching Olivia through the glass, and when Olivia flinches, the woman does it again. And again.

Feeling sick to her stomach, Olivia tries to push the image away and carries on, determined to look neither left nor right.

"Why did they bring me here?" she asks, lowly, as if the walls themselves are as haunted as the souls confined inside them, absorbing every word she speaks. She can't imagine herself as sick as the woman she's just seen, refuses to believe that the woman she was and the woman she is now are the same person.

"Like I said earlier," Dr. Valance explains, "Before you were here, you were in the general medical ward. In a bed, just like everyone else." A strange sound comes from the window to Olivia's right, and she automatically turns to look. "Don't," Dr. Valance blocks her view. "Some people in here…Well, anyway." They continue walking. "You'd spend some weekends at home with Elliot. But you became more and more difficult to, ah…manage."

"Difficult?" Olivia repeats, simultaneously frightened and angered by this idea.

Dr. Valance nods slightly, tucking her hands into her pockets. Her heels click rhythmically on the tiled linoleum of the hallway. "You would wander off. He had to start locking the doors to the house." Dr. Valance takes a breath, and she flicks her head to shift her bangs out of her eyes. "You became…hysterical, convinced that he'd hurt you and that you were being kept there against your will. You'd call the police, accuse him of all sorts of things."

Olivia feels her lungs squeeze. No wonder Elliot is so patient with her. He is terrified of what she'll do if she gets angry.

"For a while you were okay when you got back to the hospital, but then, well, you started demonstrating similar behaviours there, too."

Unsure that her voice will work, Olivia shakes her head at the awful imagery painted in her thoughts. "So they had to find a way of locking me in," she concludes, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

The doctor looks her way and tosses a small, compassionate smile. "You're getting better every day, Olivia."

Olivia scoffs quietly, under her breath. "I was fucking locked here."

They have reached a nursing station. A male nurse in a pale uniform sits behind the desk, entering something into his computer. He looks up as the approach, and states that the doctor will be with the, soon. He gestures to the small group of seats, and invites them to sit down.

Olivia scans his face – his crooked nose, the gold stud earring – hoping that something will ignite a glimmer of familiarity. Nothing comes to her. The entire ward seems utterly foreign.

"True," says Dr. Valance, and it takes Olivia a moment to realize that the doctor is continuing the conversation. "But you'd gone missing, once. For something like four and a half hours. You were picked up by the police along the Hudson, wearing nothing but your pyjamas."

Olivia stares at her shoes as they scruff against the tiles, her face heating up in embarrassment. The though of being so helpless, of being so damsel-in-distress, makes her slightly nauseous. It feels like they're discussing a stranger, someone from a novel or a television show, a fictional loony, not herself.

"Elliot had to pick you up at the station. You wouldn't go with anyone else." Olivia cringes at the thought of Elliot having to come and pick her up; his dependant, crazy, lunatic of a wife, in front of his colleagues.

Dr. Valance notices her unease, and places a hand on Olivia's forearm. "They had no choice."

"_They _had no choice?" Olivia retorts, that familiar anger simmering low in her abdomen again. "What about me? What about _my _choices?"

"I don't know anything about that," Dr. Valance replies softly. "I've only read what's in the file, remember?"

"No," Olivia says blankly. Thoughts of hospitals and shame and Elliot float through her mind. "I think I've heard enough for now."

The doctor nods pensively. "It's quite good that you can even stand hearing any of this," she encourages. "You're getting stronger." After a moment of silence where the doctor realizes that Olivia is not going to answer, she takes out her phone from her pocket and taps the touch screen several times. "Just cancelling this afternoon's appointments," she explains with a smile, and leans back in her seat.

Olivia looks up at the sound of another pair of heels clicking against the floor. The pace is quick and sharp. "Dr. Valance," the woman approaching calls with a smile and an extended hand. Dr. Valance stands to shake, and Olivia rises to her feet, too. "Ms. Benson?"

"Olivia," Olivia corrects, shaking the new doctor's hand.

"Pleased to meet you," she says. "I'm Hilary Wilson." She is a little older than Olivia, her hair is beginning to turn grey at the roots, and a pair of half-moon glasses hang around her neck from a silver chain.

"Shall we?" Hilary gestures down the hallway.

Dr. Wilson's office is large, lined with books, piled with boxes of spilling papers. Her desk is littered with little gadgets and picture frames. Dr. Wilson sits behind her desk and indicates the two chairs opposite it, into which Olivia and Dr. Valance sink. Olivia watches Dr. Wilson take a file from the pile on her desk and open it. "Now, my dear," she says. "Let's have a look."

Dr. Valance leans forward. "It may be useful to see the room in which she lived," she suggests. "It's mostly why we came here today. To try and get more memories."

Dr. Wilson nods and squints at the file, and then after a minute she leans back in here chair. "Huh," she exhales, puzzled. "It doesn't say which room." After a beat of silence, she picks up a pen. "It's quite possible that you moved around a fair bit in any case," she says. "Most patients do, just for a change in scenery."

_Bullshit_, Olivia wants to yell_. All these rooms look the exact same. _

"That's too bad," says Dr. Valance. "What if we asked Elliot?" she turns to Olivia.

Olivia thinks of how Elliot would react. She knows he's lying to her, and that it's probably born out of protection for her. He would kill both doctors if he knew what they were planning at the moment. He'd kill anyone who might try to do anything remotely painful to her. "No. I'd rather not call him."

"But Olivia -,"

"No."

"Okay," butts in Dr. Wilson. "That's fine. I can tell you a bit about your life here, in any case," she flips some papers in the file. "That might have the same effect as seeing the room."

"What was I like?" Olivia perks, jumping on the opportunity to know more about herself. Jumping on the opportunity to contradict all the horrible things Dr. Valance had told her. "Was I happy?"

Dr. Wilson smiles. "Generally, yes. You were well liked. You seemed to make friends with one of the nurses in particular."

"What was her name?"

"I'm afraid it doesn't say." Dr. Wilson scans the notes again, and Olivia feels her heart sink. All this vagueness is killing her.

"According to the notes, you were occasionally violent." Olivia wants to shrink into the floor as the eyes of both doctors turn to gauge her reaction. "Don't be alarmed," Dr. Wilson enforces. "It's not unusual in cases like this. People who have suffered severe head trauma will often exhibit violent tendencies, particularly when there has been damage to the part of the brain that allows self-restraint." Dr. Wilson tucks her hair behind her ears. "Plus, patients with amnesia such as yours often have a tendency to do something we call, ah, confabulation. Things around them do not seem to make sense, and so they feel compelled to invent details. About themselves and other people around them. It's though to be due to the desire to fill gaps in the memory. Understandable, in a way. But it can often lead to violence when their fantasy is contradicted."

Olivia thinks to what Dr. Valance had told her earlier, about her accusations against Elliot. She wonders what in the hell had possessed her to do such a thing, to invent such horrible details about someone who wants nothing but the best for her.

"Life must have been very disorienting for you. Especially when you had visitors."

Visitors. Suddenly, she is afraid that she might have hit Elliot.

"What did I do?"

"You occasionally lashed out at some of the staff," she said.

"But not at Elliot?" she presses, her heartbeat pumping faster and faster at every lack of an answer. She'll have to apologise when she gets home. Tell him she's sorry for every time she's hurt him.

"Uh, not according to these notes…" Olivia's stomach sags at Wilson's attempt to hide the truth. _I was so horrible. I was one of the crazies and I did awful things…how can he still want me? _

"We have some pages from a sort of diary that you were keeping," Dr. Wilson says, in order to change the subject. "Could it be helpful to take a look at them? You might understand your confusion better."

It feels dangerous. Olivia glances at Dr. Valance, and the doctor nods. Dr. Wilson pushes a sheet of blue paper over to her and she takes it, as first frightened to even look at it.

When she does, she sees that it is covered in an unruly scrawl. At the top, the letters are well formed, and kept neatly within the lines. Nearer to the bottom, however, they are large and messy, inches tall, just a few words across. Though dreading what she might see, Olivia begins to read.

_8:15 a.m., _reads the first entry. _I have woken up. Elliot is here. _Directly underneath that, she had written, _8:17 a.m. Ignore that last entry. It was written by someone else, _and underneath that, _8:20 I am awake NOW. Before I was not. Elliot is here. _

Her eyes flicker further down the page, and her eyes sting slightly. _9:45 I have just woken up, FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME, _and then a few lines later, _10:07 NOW I am definitely awake. All these entries are a lie. I am awake NOW. _

She looks up. "This…was really me?" she asks, and the paper trembles in her fisted hand.

"Yes." Dr. Wilson clasps her hands. "For a long time it seemed that you were in a perpetual state of feeling that you had just woken up from a very long, very deep sleep. Look here." Dr. Wilson points to the bottom of the page, and begins quoting entries from it. "_I have been asleep forever. It was like being DEAD. I have only just woken up. I can see again, for the first time. No one better come here._ Apparently, they wanted you to write things down. I'm afraid you just became convinced that the preceding entries were written by someone else, and that they just wanted to conduct experiments. Look," Dr. Wilson reads down the page again. "_I want to sleep but I don't want to be DEAD. I want to be DEAD but still alive -_,"

"Stop." Olivia snatches the paper out of Dr. Wilson's line of sight.

After a moment of silence in which Olivia still holds the paper tucked away, protected from their inquisitive stares, Dr. Wilson speaks again. "You diary indicates that you only retained memory for a few seconds, back then. Look at all the progress you've made."

"I'm sorry," She says, "I can't -,"

Dr. Wilson takes the sheet back, and although Olivia's fingers grapple for it, she can't bring herself to focus long enough to try and get it back. "I understand, Olivia," Dr. Wilson closes the file. "It's upsetting. I -,"

Panic hits her body full force. She stands up, but the room begins to spin. "I want to leave," she says. "That wasn't me. It can't have been me, I – I would never hit people. I wouldn't hit him, I just -,"

Dr. Valance stood too, and then Dr. Wilson. "This was a mistake," Dr. Valance says. "Olivia, it's okay. We'll go home now. Come on."

* * *

><p>"Olivia," Dr. Valance murmurs when they're parked in front of Olivia's apartment building. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I was…I thought we might trigger other memories."<p>

"I can't believe I was that sick," Olivia says, gripping the door handle, wanting nothing more than to leave and go inside.

"But you're not anymore," Dr. Valance reassures.

"Maybe this is worse," she says. "This is like dying every day. Over and over. I need to get better," she says. "I can't stand this much longer. I know I'll go to sleep tonight and forget everything, and wake up and not know anything again. And the same the next day, and the next, and the next. Forever."

"There's no evidence that's the case," Dr. Valance says softly. "No reason -,"

"But it's what I think. What I'm afraid of."

Dr. Valance leans over the console and pulls Olivia to her. The doctor squeezes her, so gently that Olivia almost doesn't feel it. She feels the doctor's body, though, soft against hers, and Olivia's mind flashes to another time when she was being held. So quickly she has no time to prepare for it.

_Her eyes are closed, just the same, and her body is being pressed up against that of another, though it is different. She does not want to be held by this person, this man. He is hurting her, and she is struggling, punching and kicking and wailing. He speaks, _Bitch, _he says, _Slut, _and though she wants to argue with him, she does not. Her face is pressed uncomfortable against his shirt, and she is crying, screaming. She opens her eyes and sees the blue fabric of a dress shirt, a door, a dressing table with three mirrors, and a picture, a painting of a bird, above it. She can see his arm, strong and muscled, a vein running down its length. _Let me go! _She says, and then she is spinning and falling, or the floor is rising to meet her, she cannot tell. He grabs a handful of her hair and drags her toward the door, she twists her head to see his face. _

It is there that her memory fails her again. Though she remembers looking at his face, she cannot remember what it is she saw. It is featureless, a blank. As if unable to cope with this vacuum, her mind cycles through faces she knows, though absurd impossibilities. She sees Dr. Valance, Dr. Wilson. The receptionist at the ward. Her mother. Elliot. She can see her own face, laughing as she raises a fist to strike.

Please, _she cries, _Please don't. _But her many-faced attacker hits anyways, and she tastes blood. He drags her ruthlessly along the floor, and she feels carpet burn raging against her skin. And then she is in the bathroom, on the cold tiles, black and white. The floor is damp with condensation, the room smells of orange blossom, and she remembers how much she had looked forward to bathing, to making herself beautiful, thinking that maybe she would still he in the bath when he arrived. And that he would join her, and they would have sex, making waves in the soapy water, soaking the floor, their clothes, everything. Being too caught up in one another to ever care. _

_Her head slams the floor once, twice, a third time. Her vision blurs, doubles, and then returns. She is lifted, and her head jerks back, and she is forced onto her knees. She sees the water, the bubbles, and panic suffocates her. She is pitched forward, down, down, so quick that she thinks she will never stop, and then her head is in the water. Orange blossom in her throat. _

She hears a voice. "Olivia!" it calls. "Olivia, wait," She opens her eyes. Somehow, she is already out of the car, She is running. She opens the door to her building and dashes up the stairs to her home.

* * *

><p>"Are you okay?" Elliot asks, muting the hockey game on television. "You're…quieter than usual."<p>

She is curled up on the opposite side of the couch, her knees drawn up to her chest and her fingers wriggling. "How did I get to be like this?" She blurts, turning to look at him.

He freezes, his eyes wide with surprise. "Liv," he says, "Liv, I don't -,"

"Please," she interrupts him, uncurling herself and sitting straight up on the cushions. "I need to know."

He flips off the television, and she can tell he tries to hide his distress. "Uh, okay." He clears his throat loudly.

"But I need you to tell me everything," she presses. "Everything." _Don't lie, _she silently begs; _don't lie to me, Elliot. _

His eyes narrow. "You sure?"

"Yes," she says. She hesitates, but then decides to say it. "Some people might think it would be better not to tell me all the details. Especially if they were upsetting. But I don't think that. I think you should tell me everything, so that I can decide for myself what to feel. Do you understand, El?"

He is suspicious, she can tell by the way is body tenses. "What do you mean?"

She looks away. Her eyes rest on the photograph of the two of them that sat on the table. "I don't really know," she covers. "I know I wasn't always like this. And now I am." Elliot stares at her with eyes that seem to see right through her. "So something must have happened," she pushes on, "Something bad. I'm just saying that I know that. I know it must have been something awful. But even so, I want to know what. Don't lie to me, Elliot, please."

He reaches across the couch and touches her hand. "I wouldn't do that," he sighs.

And then he begins. "You were walking home," he says. "And you went to cross the road…"

She listens, with a mounting sense of dread, as he tells her about the car accident. When he has finished, he unmutes the game and carries on watching. There is a catch in his breath and a pain in his eyes.

"You're sure?" she says, "You're sure it was an accident?"

He sighs deeply. "Why?"

"Nothing. Thank you." She gets up from the couch and stretches, then walks toward the hallway where the door to the bedroom is.

"Where are you going?" he calls, turning to look at her. His eyes are big and sad and she can't stand to stay there for one more minute.

"I'm feeling a little fluish," she replies. "I think I'll just go to bed."

"Okay," he agrees, giving her a small smile. "There's Advil in the bathroom drawer if you need it."

"Thanks," she murmurs, and turns away from him.

* * *

><p>He pads into the room half and hour later, and finds that she's already sleeping soundly beneath the comforter. His stomach sinks when he realizes that he didn't say goodnight, and that he's lost some time with her fully aware. Nights are his favourite because she's learned so much and she knows who he is by then, and she talks to him. She doesn't hate him at night, isn't unsettled by his presence.<p>

Tomorrow morning she'll be lost again, and he'll have to be the one to break her heart.

He slips under the covers, and moves her hand, which is sprawled over on his side of the mattress. The black writing catches his eye in the near dark of the bedroom. Squinting, he looks closer.

_Top of bookshelf in study. _

* * *

><p><strong>I would love to know what you thought! <strong>


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning, she takes a shower. As she's reaching for the knobs that dictate the water's temperature, a scrawl on the inside of her hand catches her attention. She has to work to decipher the words; they're at least a couple of days old, and the ink has faded and smudged across the sweaty surface of her palm.

_Top of bookshelf in study_, she finally interprets from the black writing. She'll check what it's talking about after she washes; Elliot's gone to work for the day and she'll have nothing to do for hours. Plus, the way her hair had hung limply from her head when she'd looked in the mirror indicated that she was well overdue for a rendezvous with a shampoo bottle.

She steps under the stream and lets the warm water rinse her off. As her eyes follow the droplets of shower water falling in thrumming rivulets down her body, thin silver lines across her biceps and right hip catch her attention. Smoothing her hand across the skin there to wipe away the water, and angling her right side away from the spray, she takes a closer look.

They are scars. Barely there, only visible in the bright lights of the bathroom. They are very thin and almost white, but they are there, marking the expanse of her right side. She touches them with her finger, but they are so faint that they only rise a tiny bit against the rest of her skin, creating an almost indistinguishable bump.

She wonders where they came from, and makes a note of asking Elliot when he comes home.

This morning had been terrifying. One of the scariest experiences of her life – as far as she could remember, anyway. She'd woken up to an older, gaunt-looking reflection; it's features startlingly foreign, yet shockingly familiar all the same.

She identified only with the fear and confusion she saw swimming in the woman staring back's brown eyes. Of course the man in the next room over had explained everything, and by the time he left for work he was talking to her as if nothing had ever happened, as if nothing was wrong, as if it was okay now because she didn't look like she was on the verge of losing it.

But inside, she was screaming.

He'd even left a note of things for her to do; things such as the dishes, stripping the bed, and taking the meat out to let it defrost in time for dinner.

He told her that he was leaving his car keys so that if she got bored she could go for a drive and see the city if she wanted to. He'd reminded her that she got frustrated when she was bored, and that he didn't want her to feel like she was a prisoner in her own home.

She steps out from the shower and avoids looking both in the mirror and down at herself as she wraps a towel around her dripping body. She doesn't want to think of all the years she's missed, of the life that's been stolen from her, marked not in her mind, but in the creases and weight of her foreign body. It makes her want to be sick even when she contemplates it.

She dresses quickly for the same reason, slipping into her clothing without even debating about her outfit, something she knows all normal women her age still do.

The writing on her hand is erased, carried far down the drain, but she is all too curious about the study to really forget about it, or even ignore the inkling to check what the message was talking about.

She passes the towel roughly over her hair a few times to stop the droplets, and then tosses the towel onto the bed. Olivia exits the bedroom and turns right, following the short hallway to the last door, the one she knows to be the study. She is bare foot, and the carpet beneath her feet is soft but worn. It isn't the nicest of apartments, but she recognizes the fact that she could be living in somewhere much more unfortunate, if Elliot ever got tired of her and decided to hand her over to some sort of mental facility.

Curiosity winning her over, she reaches out to the door of the study. But when she turns the brass knob to the door, she is met with the resistance of a sticky handle. Jiggling it quickly back and forth a few times, she realizes that the door is locked.

From the message on her hand, she infers that she's been in this room before. So why now, only a day or two later (judging by the faintness of the ink on her hand) is she no longer permitted to come inside?

Wandering back into the kitchen, decidedly more low-spirited than she was before realizing that her escapades couldn't continue, she gets out a bowl and starts to dig around for the cereal.

A box of Frosted Flakes in her hand, she straightens up and turns back to her bowl. It is only then that her eyes fall on the sheet of paper Elliot had left for her, a list of things for her to do. Beside it are his keys, resting in a heap of brass and silver on top of the counter.

Quickly, she picks them up, and a rush of excitement flutters through her. Maybe the key to the study is on his key ring. Pacing back to the room at the end of the hall, Olivia compares they keys to the lock, trying to match them in both shape and colour.

Many of his keys are silver, and of standard size. There are a few brass ones, and those a bit bigger than the silver ones. Finally, hidden between two silver keys that hide it with their size, is a small, jagged key, with a stain of green gum on the part where one holds it.

She inserts the key into the lock, and the air in her lungs expels in one big breath when it slides in easily, turning without complaint and enabling her to push the door open.

There is a big wooden desk with several drawers off to one side, and against the wall there is a tall bookshelf. She walks over to it and slides her hand along the top. She feels nothing but dust.

Whatever was up there, the thing the message on her hand wanted her to find, is gone. There is absolutely nothing atop this tall piece of furniture except dust bunnies.

Growling in frustration at yet another blocked path, she turns to the desk. The drawers are tightly locked as well, but the key she used to enter the room works just as well to open the secrets of this place, too.

As she peers into the full bottom drawer, a sense of guilt washes through her. A voice in the back of her mind is telling her that this drawer – this room – was locked for a reason. It is obvious that whatever she'll find in this room isn't meant for her eyes to see.

Her curiosity one more besting the reasoning voice within her, she pulls out the top paper.

The sheet she holds in her hand makes no sense to her. The words are written with the same handwriting, as the scrawl on her hand for it is equally messy, though much easier to decipher against the white of the paper.

Shocked and entranced, she begins to read a paper dated only two days before, a paper that she herself had written, a paper illustrating terrifying details of a hotel room and an attack on her life.

Detailing how Elliot had lied to her. Detailing how her trust in him was decreasing with every breath she took. She sounds paranoid, even to herself.

Placing the paper on the carpet beside her, Olivia reaches in the drawer again and pulls out a thick yellow folder. It is kept neatly shut with brown elastic wrapped twice around its outside covers. Unwrapping it, she squints to see the writing at the top corner of the folder.

Her fingers tremble as she holds the file in her hand, the title on the manila envelope catching the air in her throat.

Divorce papers. According to the writing in the corner, and the date, they're divorce papers from five years ago – and if she remembers correctly from what Elliot had told her this morning, only three months before the accident.

Opening the file with shaky fingers, her disbelieving eyes scan the page, desperate for an explanation, for more information. Searching hopelessly for an excuse, any excuse, telling her that they aren't hers or Elliot's. How ridiculous, she thinks. Of course these papers don't belong to them – he'd just told her this morning that everything was fine, that she was okay. Of course, she thinks, they are likely a friend's and he was called as a witness or something. They could be part of a case, something that went cold but stayed with him nonetheless. He'd told her how the cases he investigated bothered him a lot.

Her confusion ratchets up even further, her heart rate accelerating, when her eyes skim over the words before her.

His name is marked in clear, capital letters under petitioner. Hers marked out in black under respondent. Further down the page, her eyes are drawn to a section where a red pen has drawn a check mark in the box requesting 'dissolution of marriage'. 'Irreconcilable differences'. And then, unmistakably, his signature.

It is all there, clear as day, laid out for her to see.

He had wanted a divorce.

He had filed for divorce, and yet just this morning he had told her that they were happy, that everything was going to be okay, that of course she had nothing to worry about.

She feels like she's been slapped. She's stunned. She doesn't even know the man, and yet heavy waves of betrayal heat her face and she can feel herself getting warm.

Again. Again she's been lied to. First with the reason for her memory loss, and now about their past life.

Placing the folder down beside her carefully, as if they'll explode if she shakes them too hard – or maybe that's just what she's feeling inside.

Underneath the divorce papers, there's a bunch of useless pieces of crap, stray papers like recipes for groceries and appliances, and papers with just a few random words scribbled across them.

The last thing in the drawer, hidden deep at the back, is a thick brown folder, much bigger than the yellow one. 'For Dr. Valance,' is written in black on a white nametag like paper on the front.

She opens the file and reads through the notes there. They are about her, and about Elliot. There isn't anything particularly useful, nothing that gives truly gives her the answers she wants, but there is a sort of logbook stapled to the front, with Elliot's signature scribbled in on almost every column.

The son of a bitch had been seeing her, regularly, for the past seven months. And he'd been spending two-hour sessions in her office, often on the days like today, where he told her he was going in to work.

Her head spins.

* * *

><p>"Why are you seeing my doctor?" She accuses, the moment he walks in the door. The study is locked back up, everything exactly as she found it, and his keys are back on the counter where he left them.<p>

"What?" Elliot toes off his shoes and furrows his brow.

"Where were you just now?" She asks coolly, her volume rising. All day she's waited for his return, and the anger and confusion had just festered inside of her, cooking up a ferocious storm.

Her arms come to wrap around herself and she stands at the opening of the kitchen, trapping him inside the island.

He sighs, as if it's nothing new. As if she's just a stupid child, a nuisance, and what she says won't matter anyway. "At work, Olivia. I told you already. Remember this morning?"

"So what? Why should I believe that? You could've been anywhere. With anyone."

"Olivia, come on. I was -,"

"You didn't call," she interrupts, and this fighting feels good. It feels so, so good. She's in control, now. She's owning him, not the other way around. The independence that's coursing through her has felt better than anything else. "You told me you'd call, and you didn't."

"If we're working a case, sometimes I can't always -,"

"You're fucking her."

That shuts him up, and a dark cloud passes over his eyes. For a moment she worries she's taken it too far, but the adrenaline is making her feel so alive, so powerful, that she doesn't want it to stop. She doesn't care anymore if he still likes her or not. She wants answers, perhaps more than she ever has, even with her mother.

She feels obsessed, violent and uncontrollable, a raging, wild force, and it feels amazing.

He stares at her and his fingers twitch. "What?" he rumbles lowly.

She's high on the anger and the dizzying adrenaline surging in her veins.

She's hot like she's got a fever, and she's sweating.

"Dr. Valance. You're fucking her, aren't you?" Her hand comes up and she points her index finger at him accusingly as her eyes narrow. "Aren't you!"

He presses his lips together so tightly they turn white. He tries to push past her. "I'm not listening to this."

"Don't you dare!" she shrieks, and he turns to face her.

"How do you even know about her?" Elliot replies coldly, confusion sharp in his eyes. "I didn't talk about her this morning."

Ger breath lodges in her throat, and the lie is out of her mouth before she can even think about it. "I remembered her."

His eyes light up momentarily.

She snorts. "What, you think I can't make progress? I'm not an invalid!"

He wipes a hand over his face as if he's really tired, and turns away from her, walking towards the hallway.

"Did you see her today?" She asks furiously, continuing the previous argument.

He ignores her verbal assault, perhaps too worn from his day chasing perps to fight with her. But she wants him to. She needs him to yell, so that she can have a legitimate reason to yell, too.

"I knew it," she states, to his back as he walks down the hall. "I knew it! Thought you'd just go have a good lay? What does it matter, right? It's not like I'll remember!" And then she doesn't even know what's happening. The anger is all encompassing, her legs feel invincible, but she needs to move. She needs to fucking move and she's seeing red and she's trembling, her vision focusing on nothing but him.

He turns at the last moment, right before her hand reaches out, and instead of meeting the hard planes of his shoulder blades, her palm collides with his face in a powerful, bruising punch.

For one stunned moment he stands there, his eyes wide and pupils blown, watching her in disbelief, his hand slowly rising to soothe the already apparent swell.

And then his hands are tight around her biceps and he's pushing, pushing her back against the wall of the living room, and crowding her.

"You're not one to fucking talk about cheating, Olivia." He presses her harder. "Stay away from me, okay?"

She can already feel the strange, uncontrollable rush of adrenaline leaving her body in waves, in wake of his overwhelming anger. "El…" she whispers hoarsely, and tries to lift her palms to him, only succeeding in grazing his elbows because of the way he holds her.

Pulling away like she's burned him, he doesn't listen, just lets go and disappears into the bedroom, slamming the door behind himself. She hears the tap start to run in the bathroom, and the sound of drawers being angrily pulled open, and then violently shut.

And she can't breathe. It's not because she's still particularly angry, it's that she literally cannot draw breath. Her hands reach back and her nails dig into the wall, and she bends forward, trying to inhale enough air to relieve the pressure in her lungs.

Her tongue feels huge and her throat feels swollen, and every breath she takes in feels like it's scraping against the walls of her oesophagus, and there're tears in her eyes.

"El – Elliot," she tries, and arches her back, becoming more and more frantic with each passing failed attempt to fill her lungs properly. "Elliot!"

She's crying because suddenly, with the return of her sanity, she's so, so sorry for accusing him of such horrible things. _Don't you remember, you stupid fuckup, what the doctor said? You'd make things up, before. Accuse him of all sorts of things. Things he didn't do. Things you just cooked up in the screwed up lab that's your brain. _

The bedroom door opens again and then Elliot's there, pacing towards her and watching her with tense eyes for a moment. Finally, as if he's made a decision, he sighs and comes toward her, reaching out, pausing a moment to see if she'll hurt him again or not, before pulling her to him, his hand gripping the back of her head tightly.

"Relax. Just relax," he says calmly, stroking her back. "Don't think of anything else. Just try to breathe."

"I – I c-c-c-can't -," She tries to speak as her breath hitches every time she inhales.

"You gotta stop, Liv." His hand smoothes down her back. "Stop panicking." She feels his cheek on the top of her head, and suddenly she's much more aware of his presence around her. He's warm, and he's not mad like he was a moment ago. The tension is still there in his body, but he touches her softly now and it's enough for her to regulate herself.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually she becomes still against him, the hiccupping spasms have abated and she focuses on the regularity of his own breaths to match her own.

She is too embarrassed at her own behaviour to even speak for a long time, her cheeks burning red in his embrace.

"I'm so sorry," she murmurs, into his shoulder. "I'm stupid."

He is silent for the longest moment, and she starts to pull away from the awkwardness of it all. His arms tighten around her and prevent her from leaving. "No," he mumbles back. "It's okay. I'm the one who's sorry."

"What?" She sniffs, confused. "You didn't do anything."

He inhales and exhales a big breath, and the hot air brushes out against her neck. "I should know better by now," he replies, gently. "It's okay, Olivia."

"I know it's not true," she insists, and she bites her lip at how fucking pathetic that sounds. "I know you aren't sleeping with her."

"I'm glad," he answers. They are silent for a while, and then he speaks. "You know, it's normal for that to happen to you."

She frowns. "What, to be cheated on?" She means it as a joke, as a diffuser of the tension, but he tenses right up and swallows hard, as if the whole idea is too sensitive for him.

"No. I mean that anger you felt. It's normal. It happens." He speaks carefully, thinking hard about how each word will affect her.

"I didn't -,"

"Yeah," he cuts her off. "You did. I saw it in your eyes. And after, when you hyperventilated… that's just a part of it. You sometimes have a hard time with your feelings. The emotions build up over several days, and because you can't remember where they came from, it's hard for you to control yourself."

"Did it happen before?" she asks, because she honestly wants to know. Wants to know how many times she's hurt him like this. Her fingers reach up and flutter gently across his reddened cheekbone.

"Mm. Couple times," he whispers, and she knows enough to know he means it has happened a lot.

"I'm sorry, Elliot. I wish I were different. I wish I could make you happy."

There is a moment where they are both frozen.

"You do," he rumbles, after a few beats of silence, his mouth at her ear. "Of course you do."

And then he's tipping her face up and his warm lips are on hers. She hadn't noticed before, but they're slightly chapped, and the roughness feels good. It feels real, and raw.

His hands slide up to tuck her hair behind her ears, and from there they follow the trajectory to the back of her head, the fine hair slipping though his fingers as he holds her steady.

"Liv," he says, and his mouth barely leaves hers.

"What," she answers, her fingers flexing on his ribcage.

"Let me close tonight," he whispers.

She moves to pull back, knowing exactly the intent of his words. He wants to be intimate. He wants to have sex with her. She hardly knows him, and yet she's already bared her soul…

"No," he murmurs under his breath as she tries to retreat from his embrace. He chases her with his lips. "No, no, no, Liv. Please," he whispers desperately, moving his hands down her shoulders.

She stills, moving neither forward nor back. "I – I, uh,"

"It's okay," he tells her. "You might not think so, but you know me. You know me, Liv."

The divorce papers, she thinks. The lie about her accident. The folder for Dr. Valance. How well does she _really_ know him? How much can she actually trust this man?

He may not have been honest about anything else with her, but as she watches him now, she can see in the blue of his eyes that his intentions for tonight are nothing but open and wanting and absolutely honest.

She inhales deeply, her heartbeat picking up again. "Okay."

* * *

><p>She's really warm, she realizes after, as Elliot lies above her, their skin sticky and salty. He's like a space heater, and everywhere he touches her she burns. Sex with him wasn't as scary an experience as she expected it would be; he had been attentive and responsive, and despite his intensity, he'd gone slowly for her.<p>

Spent, he is a heavy weight lying on her stomach. His open mouth is wet on her shoulder.

He is lazy in the aftermath of their intimacy, his breathing slow, his conversation limited.

"Thank you," he murmurs in her ear, before kissing the lobe beneath and taking it gently into his mouth. His hand is at her waist and his thumb traces circles in her sweaty skin. He begins to kiss her face, just lightly, and she can't help but wonder why he wants to; her hair is matted with sweat and she knows enough to recognize that she isn't a very good lover. She turns her head slowly towards him, and he fastens his lips with hers again.

It kind of stings when he kisses her, for her lips are swollen and irritated because he likes to suck on them. She wonders idly if there's lip balm or some sort of cream she can put on them to help with the burn.

She remembers how he'd kissed her right side, his mouth and tongue slipping over the white scars, his hands holding hers. It had felt much to intimate and she'd struggled a lot with it internally, before he'd sensed her discomfort and pulled away from the white lines marring her skin.

He had tried not to be too vocal, she remembers, and in turn she'd bitten her lip and forced herself to keep quiet. It would have been too embarrassing to make noise.

He'd told her to let herself go, encouraged her to participate and he'd even offered her some control, but she'd been strangely unsure of herself and preferred to let him have his way.

It hadn't taken too long for him to push as far inside as he could get and begin to tremble above her, and moments later he'd released himself inside her. It was a strange sensation for her, not overly pleasurable, but not unenjoyable either.

She had felt close to him.

He'd reached down when he was done and finished her himself, his calloused fingers rubbing heated circles on her clit and his mouth sucking at her skin.

It had been good.

It was awkward for her after, and she felt like she didn't belong, like she should have gotten up and gone to the bathroom, but he'd stayed above her and held tight.

He lies there now, his breath warm. Only the shrill trilling of his cell phone on the bedside table disrupts him.

When he rolls off her, her skin sticks with his and they kind of have to peel apart, and it tickles her a bit.

He grunts into the phone unhappily. He rises and dresses and then bends down to kiss her chastely on the top of her head before he leaves.

She can't decide how she feels about him. He can't possibly be as bad as all the papers made him out to be. She can sense that he is a good man. And the warmth she'd seen in his eyes as he climaxed couldn't possibly have been faked.

She takes a piece of paper from the kitchen and writes down everything she can remember from the day. This time, she hides the paper in the very back of her clothing drawer, and writes the message for herself on the back of her brush, which is in a bag in the bathroom.

No one will find it but her.

She wants to chastise herself for being so paranoid, but somewhere behind her ribcage she is aware of tiny tendrils of uncertainty, warning her that she has only uncovered the beginning of a very ugly truth.

* * *

><p>AN: Thanks again for reading, and for all the awesome feedback ;)


End file.
